Field NotesArrivals5 minute read
Rain on the glass, never on the coat: a covered afternoon from Bond Street to Liberty
A grey afternoon planned so the umbrella stays furled: an auction house on Bond Street, three historic arcades, a long lunch with a view of the rain and the timbered galleries of Liberty.
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The umbrella rule
London rain is rarely dramatic. It is patient, sideways and very good at finding the gap between collar and neck. On Oxford Street it also turns the pavement into a slow contest of umbrellas, which is no way to spend an afternoon with someone you met an hour ago. The better plan is a route that never needs one: covered rooms linked by the shortest possible dashes, and a cab for anything longer than the width of a street.
What follows is one such afternoon, running from Bond Street down to Piccadilly and back up to Oxford Circus. It fills three or four hours without effort and works on any day the shops are open. Exhibitions and opening times change, so check each stop the evening before.
Bond Street, from the basement up
Begin at Grays, on Davies Street beside Bond Street station, an antiques market inside a Victorian terracotta building put up for a firm of sanitary-ware makers. Its dealers sell silver, jewellery, clocks and curiosities from small glass-fronted stands, and in the basement a channel carries water from the lost River Tyburn, which still flows under this part of Mayfair on its way to the Thames. It makes an excellent first meeting: plenty to look at, plenty to talk about and no pressure to buy anything.
A few minutes south on New Bond Street, taken briskly under the shop awnings, Sotheby's has occupied the same address since 1917. Above its door sits an Egyptian statue of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, some three thousand years old and easily the oldest thing on the street. Inside, the galleries open to the public for viewings before the major sales, and a quiet weekday hour among paintings bound for auction is one of the most civilised things to do in London while it pours.
Three arcades on Piccadilly
From Bond Street a short cab ride reaches Piccadilly, where London perfected the covered shopping street. The Burlington Arcade opened in 1819, and its beadles, in top hats and frock coats, still keep watch over it. The Royal Arcade, from 1879, links Old Bond Street with Albemarle Street, and the chocolatier Charbonnel et Walker keeps a shop inside. Across the road, the Piccadilly Arcade runs through to Jermyn Street beneath a row of Edwardian bow windows.
Walk them slowly, side by side. An arcade is the one kind of shopping street where the windows are the point rather than the obstacle: shirts, umbrellas for another day, watches, perfume and small leather goods, each shop narrow enough to take in at a glance without going through the door.
A long lunch with a view of the weather
Rain is the finest excuse for a two-hour lunch. At the northern end of the Burlington Arcade, the Burlington Gardens entrance of the Royal Academy of Arts is a few steps across the road, and inside, the academy's buildings connect right through to Burlington House, so galleries, shop and café are all reached without another step in the open. Across Piccadilly, Fortnum & Mason, trading on Piccadilly since 1707, has dining rooms spread across several of its floors. Choose a table by a window: watching rain from a warm room with a good glass of wine is a pleasure that only works when neither of you has anywhere else to be.
If an exhibition is on, buy timed tickets the day before. An hour among paintings after lunch is exactly the pace a wet afternoon ought to keep.
North again, under Liberty's timbers
For the last stretch, a cab back up Regent Street drops you at Liberty on Great Marlborough Street, a minute from Oxford Circus. The mock Tudor store went up in 1924, built with timbers from two Royal Navy ships, HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan, and inside it is all wooden galleries around a light well, creaking floorboards and small rooms that feel more like a house than a department store. Fabrics, scarves, stationery and scent make it easy to lose an hour without a plan.
Round the corner on Ramillies Street, The Photographers' Gallery is the alternative for anyone who has had enough of shops. By the time you come out the rain may have stopped, and the lights along Regent Street will be on either way.
Dry transfers and meeting points
Meet at the first stop rather than on the street: just inside the entrance at Grays, or in your hotel lobby if it is close by. Black cabs vanish in the rain faster than at any other time, so hail the next one before the last conversation has finished, or ask a doorman to find one. One stop on the Central line, Bond Street to Oxford Circus, often beats a cab in wet traffic.
Three hours at £700 covers the whole route with a proper lunch; four at £900 lets it run on into tea or an early supper, and every other length is on rates. Her own journey to the first stop is included, while the table, the tickets and the cabs you share are yours as host. A covered afternoon like this counts as a shopping afternoon, even if you buy nothing at all.
Good company when it pours
Patricia paints in watercolour and likes her tea under glass on a grey day; take her to the Royal Academy and she will find the one small painting everyone else walked straight past. Danielle loves museums and old films, and she is at her best on an afternoon when the light outside offers no competition. Margo is the companion for contemporary art, happy to argue about a canvas over lunch, while Angelika gives a single work her full attention and then defends her opinion of it all the way to the next room.
Danielle and Angelika are both raven-haired, and Patricia belongs to the statuesque edit. When the forecast turns grey, the booking page holds a ready message, and Clementine will suggest who is free that afternoon.
Written at the desk by Clementine (Bookings), who handles bookings for Oxford Street Escorts. Send any question about this note on WhatsApp or Telegram and it gets a written reply.